Slimmers take on charity challenge

Margaret Sharpe, Jenny Sharpe, Natalie McKee, Elspeth Turner-Warke, Evelyn McAteer, Joyce Elliot and Jim Crookshanks, members of the Monkstown Slimming World group who took part in the gold medal challenge. INNT 36-617con

Published:07:00Wednesday 12 September 2012

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A GROUP of Monkstown Slimming World members joined in the Olympic fever with a mammoth sporting challenge.

The group walked the equivalent distance of Belfast to Greece, the home of the modern Olympic Games.

They took up the challenge to get more active and raise money for the NSPCC as part of Slimming World’s Miles for SMILES campaign.

The campaign ran for three weeks, with members including some extra activities in their everyday routines.

Members from the Monkstown Village Centre group managed to clock up the equivalent of 755.5 miles extra activity in the first week of the challenge and over the three week period covered an amazing 2,156 miles - almost 100 miles further than the distance from London to Olympia in Greece, home of the first Olympic Games.

Elspeth Turner-Warke who is the consultant for the Monkstown Village Centre Group said: “Before we lost weight most of us never did any exercise.

“However, after transforming our lives by losing weight we now know anything is possible with the support of people around you.

“It’s easy to fall out of the habit of being active when you’ve got a busy life and the weather gives you plenty of opportunity to make excuses.

“And when you’re overweight you’re often very self-conscious about doing any sort of exercise anyway.

“The difficulty is that the longer we go without doing exercise, the less confident we feel about it, but by starting out by just doing a few minutes each day it’s possible for most people to do some regular activity to keep healthy.”

Recently over 130 Slimming World members from across east Antrim took part in a challenge to walk the equivalent distance of between London and Belfast.

Elspeth congratulated Jim Crookshanks who completed the challenge in his wheel chair.

Jim, said: “Doing this event together showed us all how motivating being part of a group can be. Everyone had a part to play and it all adds up.”

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